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Archive for the ‘Caloundra Website Design’ Category

Achieving better local searches with Google Places for Business

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Achieving better local searches with Google Places for Business

These days, if you’re not on the first couple of pages of Google your business is probably missing out on a lot of potential customers and new business.

If you’ve got great search engine optimisation you might be lucky enough to be on the first page of Google’s organic searches, otherwise you might be spending hundreds of dollars a week in pay-per-click to achieve good results.

But there is another option, which Google provide free of charge, called Google Places for Business.

Google Places is the search results you often see at the top of the listings next to the Google Map, which provides a basic overview of the business listing and often a star review of the business.

There are limited spots available for Google Places listings, but there are a few simple tricks to getting your business into these top spots and generating a huge amount of free traffic to your website.

google-places-sunshine-coast.jpg

Here are out tips for creating a great listing on Google Places for Business:

The easiest way to get started is to type in ‘Google Places’ into Google or follow the link to the Google Local Business Center – http://www.google.com/local/add

You may need to create a Google account if you haven’t already.

Now you need to create your Google Business profile. Creating this correctly is the key to your success on Google..
Make sure you include a physical postal address and a real phone number as Google will verify you are a real business by either calling you or posting you a code to enter into your account.

Make sure your description contains [a good amount of keywords that reflect your business and that you want to be found under. For instance if you have a car parts business your description should be something like: ‘Todd’s Used Car Parts Calgary stocks genuine vehicle parts for all european makes and model cars.’

the description now includes a good variety of specific keywords including the location to help Google recognise exactly what the business does.

Makes rue the categories you choose reflect the business and your description.

You can also add your trading hours, payment types etc. The more you add the more Google loves you.

Now, you can also include photos and a logo. Preparing these correctly can help your listing.
Name each image with relevance to your business, for example: rather than an image name like ‘img123.jpg’ name it ‘calgary_car_parts.jpg’

This also goes for your logo as well.

for the images, don’t make them too large or they will load slow. A good size is about 600 x 450 pixels at 72dpi.

Google Place Reviews for your Business

Often you will see reviews on the Google Places listings. These reviews can also help drive the listing to the top spots.
If you run your website or blog on WordPress you can also get reviews directly from your website listed on Google Places by simple adding a Google Reviews plugin into your website. The plugin is free, and it places a Review button on each page of your website allowing people to comment, which you verify before it goes live. These reviews then show up on Google Places.
This is particularly helpful if you have an online shopping cart, real estate site or a business directory.

Devision Design are the Sunshine Coast & Brisbane experts in social media marketing, search engine optimisation and Google Places for Business listings.

Contact Devision on 07 54932001 or visit www.Devision.com.au and see how easy it is to get your business found on Google!

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Posted in Brisbane Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Online Marketing, Social Networks, Sunshine Coast Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

The 7 Most Important Factors to a Successful Online Business

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

For some reason many people have the mentality that creating a website to sell a product or service online is easy.
Whether they have received this advice from an internet marketing seminar telling them they will make thousands almost overnight, or have read about the online stores reaping in huge profits.
People hear about the billions that are being made online by Google, Facebook and other mainstream sites and somehow build up the picture in their head that the information super highway known as the internet is paved with Gold.

I agree wholly that there certainly is a lot of money to be made online, just as there is with creating any successful business.
Take Coca-Cola for instance, they make hundreds of millions every single day, so why not set up a soft drink company? Because it is extremely hard work!
There are reasons businesses success, both in the traditional form and the online form, and this all comes down to a few key ingredients

The 7 Most Important Factors to a Successful Online Business

1. If you’re planning an online business, you need a business plan!
This sounds so stupidly obviously, but the fact is almost 70% of all websites and blogs have no plan in place, and the major reason online businesses fail within the first 12 months, most times, even quicker.
If you plan on setting up an online business, treat it like a real business. You don’t just suddenly wake up one day and think ‘I might open a shop today!’, and then go purchase a shop and fill it up and sit there until someone walks in the door. this approach would lead to failure within the first month!
A website is no different. Your goal is to make a profitable business online, so plan it out like a business. Think about everything involved in setting up a standard business and pretty much the same will apply for a website.

Firstly you need the basics. A business plan to work out a realistic timeframe, investment costs for the development for the website, hosting and domain name registration, etc
Work out the initial timeframe to get online and then set your goals for 3 month, 6 month, 12 month, 2 year plan, and then every 6 to 12 months after so you can review your website. internet technology moves at a faster pace than traditional business, so any advantage you might have over a competitor can lead to a much healthier income for you.

2. Researching your niche.
Before racing off with the brilliant idea of unleashing your business online, always do market research first. This could save you a lot of money or even possible failure online.
The internet is full of businesses trying to make a success of online business ventures. Some do succeed, and very well too, but others fail purely because they forgot to look at the marketplace first and check out their competition.
Always check who your main competitors are, their target audience, what they are selling and for how much. If they are selling the same as you, work out a plan that you can out-sell them. A smart bit of marketing either in the initial stages of the design of your website or your marketing can make all the difference.

3. Plan your website development
Many people take the totally wrong approach when planning their website, and base everything on getting their website built for the cheapest price possible.
Many people are shopping around offshore to India, Malaysia and Pakistan to find web developers that will work for $9 to $15 an hour. Now I’m not saying you won’t get a quality job done for this rate as I have many friends that are web developers in these countries, but finding the good web developers amongst the bad ones is hard and time consuming. You might also find it could cost you more than you initially budgeted if you don’t spend a lot of time working out exactly what you want the site to achieve, and how it functions, and then can successfully relay this information to your new developer. And remember, there is always a chance that if you require any updates to your site in 12 months the developer of your site may have moved on to a different company, which could end up costing you much more on re-development costs rather than a simple job from a local web developer you know. So this is something important to keep in mind before basing the website purely on getting the cheapest job possible. Like anything often you get what you pay for. If you get $9 an hour labour don’t always expect a million dollar job.

4. Functionality
As I mentioned in the past 2 points, keep functionality in mind when planning your website before rushing in and getting your website built. Some simple smart thinking can be the difference between success and failure online.
Talk to a professional web consultant and also review other successful websites of the major companies in your trade and look at what they do to achieve online success.
For example, just small editions to your site such as a mailing list form so people can subscribe to your mailing database can turn into thousands of dollars every year on email marketing up-sells. Adding social media buttons for Facebook and Twitter can not only spread your online brand like wildfire, but have people recommending, ‘liking’ and tweeting about your products to their friends which will almost definitely return sales for you.
These take a web developer only a few minutes to add but can make you thousands of dollars. Unless you are a web developer yourself, don’t try and plan, or worse, build your website yourself, Spend an hour or two with a real consultant who understands social media and online marketing techniques, not just web development.

5. Branding
There are so many ugly websites online! These websites are representing your business, your product, and most importantly – you!
If your website looks like a steaming pile of shite it sends out the message that you don’t really care about your business brand, your products you sell or your clients, and you will probably turn away more people than make sales.
think about all the successful brands both online or offline, not think about their branding. Most you will be able to automatically visualize their logo in your head, or their slogan, jingle or catchy tune on their advertising.
This is smart branding and smart marketing, and a good part of their success.
If you don’t have a professional looking logo, go get one! A professional logo doesn’t have to cost the earth, and a good logo designer will provide you with a visual style manual of your logo upon completion, providing you with full ownership of your logo, plus provide the logo in all the different formats you require and details of colours used, etc so your logo will always remain consistent at all times no matter what the medium it is being used in, web, advertising, tv, signage, etc. If your logo designer didn’t provide all this, ask for it. You need it and it saves you money getting it redone later.
The more professional your online business looks, the more trustworthy you appear and the more confident the customer is in handing over their hard earned money for your services or product.

6. Marketing Budget
Probably the most important aspect of any business, yet people never seem to leave enough dollars for marketing.
People often tend to think you can just throw a website up onto the internet and it will have people flooding your website with wads of cash in hand. Unfortunately this is not true.
You need to have a marketing plan in place before even building your website, and more importantly have the money available. Put aside some cash for launching the website, allowing for spending on Google Adwords, Facebook ads or pay for links and hits just to build up the traffic to your website. Maybe even look at buying spots on some website directories with banner advertising. Also do the traditional marketing of flyers, business cards and even radio and tv just to get your business name out there until you get found easily on the search engines. But also plan every few months to do a few campaigns, some email marketing and other savvy marketing to keep drawing in fresh crowds, and get the old customers back again.

7. Creating a Mailing List
If you have a tight marketing budget, the number one way to attract and retain customers online is through a mailing list. By simply adding a mailing list on the homepage of your website, or even throughout the entire website, can see you gathering a list of potential clients you can market to in the future.
But if you are going to do this, do it properly! Use an email marketing system such as Aweber, Constant Contact or iContact, create your email templates and automate emails that will send out to new signups while they are a fresh hot lead, then set the system to send new campaigns on a timed basis of say every 3 weeks or so. This keeps your brand awareness up and the potential to make additional sales.
Getting people on your mailing list is easy if you dangle a ‘carrot’. Add a special offer, like a 10% discount coupon code if they subscribe, a free downloadable e-guide, or to really attract them, a real valued giveaway. Giving away something might cost you a few dollars initially, but the returns will outweigh the costs fast.

Author: Chris Bourke of WebSEOCoach.com and Devision Design Australia

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Posted in Brisbane Website Design, Caboolture Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Marketing, Online Marketing, Website Development | No Comments »

The Recipe for a Successful Website

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

If you are considering the thought of creating a new website or blog, whether to just promote your business online, or in order to make money online, the easiest way to ensure success is to think of your website as a meal.

Before creating your website, just like cooking any meal, there are a number of things to consider:

Planning. When it comes to creating a successful meal, unless you are a master chef you don’t just hope the ingredients in your refrigerator are going to create an award winning dish. There are a number of elements to think about, such as who is going to be eating the meal, how many ingredients and how much of each ingredient is the correct amount to get the perfect flavour and texture, how will you present the final product, and most important of all…is it something they will enjoy.

Your website should be no different.
Before diving in and hoping your website will magically be a success, think about who will be reading it (eg, gender, age, etc), how many categories, topics or pages your website or blog needs to cover. Too little it might not cover enough to be interesting, too many and it is hard for you to complete or just too much for your reader to absorb. Finding the correct balance in content is critical.

And like a meal, getting the ‘texture and flavour’ is very important. Your website or blog could be the most informative site out there, but if it doesn’t have any character to it it will be just plain boring! Add some humour, something unique, or just your own quirky twist to brand it as your own unique ‘dish’ and you will find you will get the end result you want…people will enjoy it!

The flavour of the webpage or blog isn’t just about the content though, ensuring it looks delicious is even more important, so you can catch the attention for people to ‘taste test’ it.

Templated websites are the equivalent of a packet mix. The restaurants of the top restaurants in the world most likely don’t use a Sara Lee pudding mix to serve in their restaurants, so if you want a website that is uniquely your own and not a replication, don’t use a website template unless you really can’t help it. Templated sites never really fit your personal style and always look out of place and usually unprofessional. Pay the money for a few hours design by a professional web designer and start with something unique that you own.

Establish your point of difference. In a city like New York there are literally thousands of restaurants that would serve up a nice juicy steak. Yet what is the difference between the restaurant that struggles for the business compared to another restaurant just up the street which is booked out months in advance? You will find usually it is their unique point of difference…it might be the lighting, the friendly staff, the presentation of the meals, the view, the music, or the additional touches like a warm cloth to wipe your hands with. Whatever it is, this is the secret to their success and popularity, and in the end their revenue.

Your website should be no different, offering something that makes your website uniquely different to all the other websites out there. It can be as simple as offering free downloads, or information no one else provides. A free online service such as quick easy bookings, or a regular newsletter about products. Whatever it is, find yours and integrate it into your website.

Once you have cooked up your website, the secret is to keeping it popular.
Like a meal, the best way to achieve this is keeping it fresh!

Revise your website’s ‘ingredients’ regularly, making sure that the content is fresh and up to date.
Request feedback from visitors, or if you are running a blog allow comments and actually read and reply to people’s feedback. these are your readers and if they can help you improve your website you will ensure they are coming back, and probably recommending your site to others. Keeping your readers appetite wanting more is what drives them back!

Bon appetit!

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design and Web SEO Coach
Chris is a web designer and online internet marketing coach from Australia.

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Posted in Caboolture Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Restaurant Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

Blogging: Common Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

Many people are turning to creating blogs for their existing websites to increase traffic to their websites.

Major search engines such as Google, love blogs and rank them very highly for a number of reasons, but mainly because they are ‘keyword-rich’.

One of the ways to achieving a high placement on the search engines is through the use of the correct keywords in the right place on your websites. The search engines work very similar to a human in the fact that they usually read from the top left hand corner of the website, with the title description being one of the most important factors to achieving placement on the search engines for the correct search term you want to be found with.

So for instance, if your website focuses on holiday accommodation at the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast (http://www.palazzogoldcoast.com), and you have a blog either hosted on the same site, or have an external blog through blogspot which you link directly to the website, your blog post title should reflect your subject, your location, and your hotel accommodation name. Possibly something like this….

‘Budget Accommodation Deals on the Gold Coast at Palazzo Versace’.

Now, if your website and blog is located on the Gold Coast and you want to be found when people search for Gold Coast accommodation make sure your blog ONLY reflects the Gold Coast.

I have seen a number of accommodation web site developers add blogs to their clients websites in the attempt to improve their search engine rankings, but they add other accommodation listings for other hotels as well. While this may detract from bookings on their clients hotel, it will still get good search results for Gold Coast accommodation.

Now, I have seen a number of accommodation website developers attempt this, but instead of adding just related categories, they add Categories to the blog for other locations, and then also include other hotels for other locations.

This is a HUGE MISTAKE!!

The header of the blog now appears something like this:

‘Hotel Name | Port Douglas Accommodation | Gold Coast Accommodation’

I think even if you are not a web developer you can see the obvious mistake… For starters, the search engines don’t know whether the accommodation is in Port Douglas or on the Gold Coast, so it usually drops it from the search engines as it considers it spam. Search engines are smart and realize when you are trying to trick them!

The other problem is you are trying to get the keyword density up for ‘Gold Coast Accommodation’ but then you start adding reference to Port Douglas, this dilutes the keyword density for Gold Coast Accommodation, so while your website statistics on paper might appear good, it is only because people are finding your post for the wrong reasons, while actually pushing your Gold Coast Accommodation listing down the ranks of the search engine.
Download a free copy of WebCEO and run a basic report on your website and you will soon see the reason people are actually finding you. You may be surprised at the results. General website statistics provided by your hosting company can be misleading when the full details aren’t provided.

Whether done on purpose by your web developer to try and get you more hits to your website, it is actually going to damage your ranking on the search engines. I have seen many websites drop from the search engines by this technique by web developers.

Want to know the real secret to achieving top search engine listing with your blog?
Stay tuned.

I will reveal this very simply step that anyone can do in my next blog post, Blogging: Achieving first page results on Google.

Article by Chris Bourke of Devision Design Australia, and Web SEO Coach.
Devision Design specialise in Hotel Accommodation web sites, Accommodation blogs and Tourism website optimization.
Visit www.Devision.com.au

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Posted in Brisbane Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, SEO, Sunshine Coast Website Design, Website Development | Comments Off

Professional Business Marketing on a Small Budget

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Starting up any new business can be tough at the best of times, and the current economic climate doesn’t make it any easier!

But don’t let all the doom and gloom you hear everyday stop you.

I would like to share some simple cost saving business marketing tips and services that our business, Devision, can provide that can have you looking as professional as the big guys, all for under $1000, including professional logo, business cards, letterheads and well ranking website!

Read on and I’ll tell you how!……

Branding & Logo Design – A few hundred dollars

We all know that one of the most important assets of any business is their brand and corporate identity. A professional eye catching and clever logo and brand is one of the key ingredients to any successful business, however a custom designed logo and corporate branding can usually cost big dollars.
But if you want a professional logo at a budget rate, many agencies such as Devision have a bank full of hundreds of unused logos created in the design process for other clients, which we offer at a discounted rate. Obviously it will not be a totally custom logo for your business, however many of the logos are generic enough that they can suit almost any type of business by simply changing a few colours, and you will save hundreds on the cost of your branding.

Business Card Printing – 1000 full colour for $50

Professional Business Cards are one of the next things on any new business list. They are the ‘first impression tool. for most businesses, so you don’t want some cheap laser-printed homemade business cards!
And with any new business you will want to hand out as many cards as possible to get your business name out there.
Devision offer 1000 full colour business cards for just $50!These are double sided (full colour front, greyscale/black reverse side) on a nice 300gsm artboard stock. There is a small charge if artwork or delivery is required, but you’ll agree it’s still very affordable!

Letterhead Printing – 500 full colour $170

Letterheads are the next thing you’ll be needing for your invoicing, promotional letters, etc. You can get started with 500 full colour professionally printed letterheads for as little as $170! And like most printing, the price per copy gets cheaper the more you have printed, saving you a packet!

Website – as little as a couple of hundred dollars

As I have mentioned in previous ramblings, your website is probably the single most important and most affordable marketing tool you can possibly have for your business. We receive around 85% of all new business directly through our website, and have clients all across the world that have found us online. The beauty of a website is you can start with a small website – a single page or a couple of pages for just a couple of hundred dollars, and in time build it up to suit your needs. With every website Devision design we professionally search engine optimise and submit it to the search engines using the latest techniques and SEO gear, so you’re not paying additional expenses later on to get on the search engines. In fact we are happy to coach you in SEO techniques so you can learn the secrets yourself and make sure you always stay ahead of your competitors!
Alternatively, for a few hundred dollars you can purchase a copy of Web CEO, the leading search engine optimisation software used by the professionals, and quickly learn to do it yourself.

Website Hosting - $7.95 a month

With your website you will also require a domain name and website hosting. Our partner company Webcrowd offer professional hosting plans for $7.95 a month, which are perfect for any small to medium professional business website, and you get the domain name of your choice (pending availability) for free!
The Webcrowd hosting includes unlimited email account, professional website statistics for your website, and you have full control via a Control Panel, allowing you to set up email accounts, add databases, etc as you need. And the best thing about Webcrowd is they are located in Australia so you get real local support!

So, add the services up that I have mentioned and you have no excuse not to get your business up and running in a few easy steps at a cost much cheaper than you probably thought. You have no excuses to get out there and beat the Economic Crisis Blues!

For full details and plenty of examples of our work, visit Devision at www.Devision.com.au

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Posted in Branding, Brisbane Printing, Brisbane Web Hosting, Brisbane Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Marketing, Maroochydore Web Site Design, Mooloolaba web site design, Noosa Website Design, Printing, SEO, Sunshine Coast Website Design, Sydney Printing, Website Development | No Comments »

SEO – Get your Business to the top of Google

Monday, May 4th, 2009

By Scott Van Achte

In today’s online world search engine rankings can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, their combined market value is still less than that of Google. This makes achieving top rankings in Google that much more important.
In this three-part series on How to Optimize for Google we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other considerations.
The focus of Part 1 will be with on page website optimization.

THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
This article is not about keyword research so I will not spend too much time on this topic, however, I felt it was important to at least brush on this slightly.

Make sure that your targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still provide a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Your phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified traffic to your site.
Using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word “hotel” would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to “Victoria BC hotel” you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep your targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
There are many on-site factors that play a role in your search engine rankings. Here are a number of those factors and what you can do to improve your chances of success.

Title Tag
The title tag plays one of the most important roles in search results at Google, and is almost always the heading Google chooses for each of its listings. Placement of your target phrase is best used near the start of the tag and repeated again in the middle or near the end. Three uses of your target phrase may be helpful in some instances, as long as it is not too overwhelming. For best results each page on your site should have a totally unique title tag.
It is also important to remember that because Google will use this title as the main heading for your listing, you will want to keep it attractive to potential searchers. Try to also add a call to action, or other wording to help make your listing appear attractive to searchers.
To help illustrate the fact Google takes this tag into consideration, simply do a search for your target phrase and take a look at the titles of the top 10. I tried a search for a rather broad term “hotel” and saw that all 10/10 listings had it in the title tag, and 6/10 had it as the very first word. A quick scan showed that the entire top 30 either had the word hotel, or hotels in their title tags.
If you do only one thing to your website, make sure that all your title tags are relevant, unique, and contain your target phrase for each page.

Meta Description Tag
The Meta Description tag is still occasionally used by Google as the description which appears in the search results themselves. While this used to be a more common practice Google tends to use it most often on sites with very limited content, or those which are flash based. I have seen it still used for content rich sites, however this is less common.
The Meta Description tag still has an impact on search rankings. Your best bet when using this tag is to keep it short and sweet with your target phrase close to the start and not repeated more than 3 times. Like the title tag, each page on your site should have its own unique description tag.
Meta Keyword Tag
When it comes to Google this tag is useless, and won’t influence your rankings. There is some speculation as to whether a spammy keyword tag can however, have a negative effect on Google rankings. As a result, if you do utilize a keyword Meta tag for the smaller engines, it is best to keep it clean and play it safe.

Density
Keyword density plays a role in overall rankings; however, it is not as cut and dry as it once was. Once upon a time there was a magic number that when used could almost guarantee top rankings.
This is no longer the case. Today the ideal density varies from industry to industry, phrase to phrase. To find out what density you should aim for, take the top 10 or 20 search results and see what percentage those sites are using. In most cases you will find that the majority of these sites have a very similar density to one another, and this average density is a good estimation of what you should aim for.
Body Text and Keyword Placement
The location of relevant text on your site will help establish the overall importance of your target phrase. While you do not want to overwhelm the engines and site visitors with a bombardment of target phrases at the top of the page, try to sprinkle in some instances as close to the top of the page as possible.

Synonyms
Be sure to include various synonyms for your target phrases within your body text on your site. Google will use these synonyms to tie in the overall relevance of the page for your main target phrases, which in turn can improve your odds.
To find possible synonyms you can use a thesaurus, but the best way is to search Google itself and see exactly what they consider to be similar. Simply search in Google for your target phrase preceded with a tilde, such as “~hotels”. Next scan through the search results for any text Google has bolded. These are all words that Google considers to be related. Using the “~hotels” example Google brings up phrases such as ‘travel’, ‘tourism’, ‘accommodation’, as well as various hotel chain names such as ‘Hilton Hotels’.

Keywords in Domain
There is still some speculation if having a target phrase as part of your top level domain (TLD) is of use to search rankings. From my experience, yes, there is value here, although, nothing like it was several years ago.
If you are starting off in the online world and are contemplating which domain to go for, consider one that uses your target phrase, assuming that it is both relevant to your business name, and uses no more than a single hyphen. While multiple hyphens in a domain can be successful, they are very common with highly spammy websites, so it is best to not take that route if possible.
While having a keyword located within your domain can provide some ranking juice, I would not suggest heading out and doing a domain swap. In most cases you would be better off working on your existing site than starting from scratch with a new domain.

Keywords in page specific URL
Using keywords for specific page URL’s can also help add a little bit of value to your site, providing you use them responsibly. Consider using a keyword as a directory name and as part of a file name where it naturally makes sense to do so. If you have a website that focuses on tourism and includes local hotel listings, you may want to consider the following structure for your page on the Hilton:
MyTourismSite.com/Victoria/Accommodations/Hotels/Hilton.html

Link Anchor text
This is the actual text you click on as part of a link. When full or partial target phrases are used within your text links they help pass on some value to the linked page for those phrases. This is also true when considering surrounding text. When the content around the link is also relevant, the link holds slightly more value.
While a link that simply states “click here” or “www.domainname.com” does have its place, they provide considerably less value than a link that would use “discount hotels” as its anchor.

Image Alt Text
While image alt text still plays a minor role, its biggest part is within the use of image based navigation. If you have an image linked to another page, the alt text will be attributed much the same way as standard link anchor text is.
Image Alt text should always be short and to the point and should accurately describe either the image itself, or the page the image is linking to. Do not use alt tags as a place to stuff keywords.

Inline Links
These are links that are found mid sentence or mid paragraph as opposed to a simple listing of links as found in a menu or possibly on a sitemap. Links found mid paragraph tend to pass on a little more value from the surrounding text and can offer more relevance to the linked page.

Site Navigation
It is absolutely imperative that your website be fully spiderable by the search engines. This may seem obvious, but often webmasters overlook Google’s ability to crawl a website. Google has become very advanced in what links it can follow and how it can spider a website, but there are still some things that can cause significant roadblocks.

- Flash: One of the most commonly made mistakes is the use of flash. If flash is used as a sole means of site navigation then you can count on Google not viewing your internal pages, and having a significant disadvantage in terms of site rankings.

- Java Script / DHTML: These days most Java Script and even DHTML menus can be spidered by Google, however, this is not always the case. If your site utilizes any kind of fancy navigation and you are wondering why Google has not indexed your internal pages, check out Google’s Cached Text version of your page. If you do not see any text links, then your navigation may be invisible to Google.

- Images: Image based navigation has been safe for many years now, but if your site uses this form of navigation it is essential to have brief, relevant alt text on all your buttons. This alt text will act much like standard anchor text for text based links. This is not only for the purpose of search ranking value, but take a look at Google’s cached text version of your page. If you have image based links that do not have alt text, those links do not appear. This doesn’t mean Google won’t follow them, but for anyone viewing your site on a text based browser, your links will be invisible to them.

URL Structure
Avoid long elaborate URL’s with extraneous characters. While Google has reached a point where they can index massive URL strings, it is best to avoid them if at all possible. For dynamic sites consider utilizing mod rewrites to significantly clean up the URL to not only make it more search engine friendly, but more user friendly as well.
MyTourismSite.com/?locid=”victoria”&catid=”accommodations”
&type=”hotel”&comp=”hilton”
stands a better chance if cleaned up to read:
MyTourismSite.com/victoria/accommodations/hotels/hilton.htm

SUMMARY
Basic website optimization is a critical component for successful placement in Google but is only part of the overall picture.

Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Scott’s articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com

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Posted in Accommodation Websites, Brisbane Website Design, Caboolture Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Mackay Website Design, Marketing, Maroochydore Web Site Design, Mooloolaba web site design, New Zealand Website Design, Noosa Website Design, Restaurant Website Design, SEO, Sunshine Coast Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

12 Simple Steps to Effective Websites

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

By Nancy Fraser

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.

Edward Lear must have had some precognition about what was in store for us all with the development of the internet when he wrote this nonsensical poem.

Many people do feel at sea after they launch their website and attempt to navigate the sometimes confusing channels of the internet. They wonder why their website doesn’t get more traffic and why their inbox is not filling up with emails from people clamoring to buy their products or services.

It seems that the rules change as often as Oprah changes her clothes and who could ever hope to keep up with that!

Price quotes for search engine optimization are all over the map; the process seems never-ending and expensive.

How is it that some people seem to have great success on the web without spending a huge amount of money? Is it unrealistic to think that you can make a living working on the web?

When faced with a seemingly overwhelming challenge it helps to break things down into bite-sized pieces.

Effective websites should include the following:
1. Your website needs to focus on a specific niche.

2. You need to do keyword research and although Google no longer gives weight to Meta keywords some of the other major search engines still do.

3. Your website should have the main keyword used throughout and each page should be written around 5-10 keywords that are tightly focused on that particular page’s topic.

4. Content is still King. Well written, focused content is crucial.

5. Meta titles need to include your keywords.

6. Organization of content should include headings and subtitles to make it easy for readers to scan the pages. Be sure to include your keywords in these headings as well.

7. Most people on the web are looking for information. If you don’t give them anything of value or entertain them, they will be gone, probably for good.

8. Use keywords in links whereever possible.

9. Include a call to action and,if possible, offer a Free trial. You have to build trust before you can make a sale.

10. Check your website in various browsers (FireFox, Internet Explorer, etc.) to make sure it displays equally well in all.

11. Your personality is what attracts people to you so why would you create a generic website with all of the excitement of a flat glass of pop. Keep the content fresh so it has Fizz!

12. Most importantly, have realistic expectations of what you want to achieve with your website. With all the hype about overnight successes on the internet it’s difficult to put your results into perspective. If you expect instant success and it isn’t happening, it’s easy to become demoralized and quit before you reach your goal.

Some Other Important Web Marketing Tips

Google page rank counts! The higher your page rank number the higher you will rank in user searches. How do you find out your page rank? Download the Google toolbar here for Internet Explorer http://toolbar.google.com/T4/ or here for FireFox http://tools.google.com/firefox/toolbar/install.html.

Improve your page rank by encouraging other highly ranked websites in complementary businesses to link to yours and by developing content with a niche focus. Page rank is also affected by traffic numbers. A couple of ways you can boost traffic are pay-per-click advertising and posting articles on the web.

Your web image is at least as important as your personal image. You wouldn’t go out to meet a prospective client wearing a mishmash of styles and colours but many businesses have websites with tools that don’t work, tables and text that are out of alignment, old information, dated colours, and confusing navigation. Those things are bad enough but when an experienced web developer looks at the code on a website they often find a website that looks good but is not built to encourage search traffic.

Be prepared like the wise owl and make the job of marketing your business as easy as possible with a website that enhances your brand image and is technically sound and purrrr your way to success.

About The Author
Nancy Fraser of Nota Bene Consulting has been helping clients get better results with their marketing and advertising for over 20 years. Sign up for Notable News and get free marketing tips at www.notable-marketing.com.

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Posted in Brisbane Website Design, Caboolture Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Mackay Website Design, Maroochydore Web Site Design, Mooloolaba web site design, New Zealand Website Design, Noosa Website Design, SEO, Sunshine Coast Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

New finance website for Caloundra Accounting firm Rettore & Notley

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Rettore Notley Accountants – Caloundra
Financial website design

Accountanting firm Rettore Notley recently asked Devision to develop a new logo for the launch of their business, based at Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. The logo reflects a corporate partnership of the two professional partners.

Devision also completed the design design of the stationery and signage for Rettore Notley, as well as the development of their website, putting them on the search engines as the leading Caloundra accountants.

Visit the website: www.rettorenotley.com.au

For more of our Business Service websites, click here

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Posted in Caloundra Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »